And now, the Beef has this license. Pretty cute, isn't it? He had to get measured up for height to make it on the ride this trip and after he 'measured up', the cast member whipped out this card to mark the occasion. Pretty awesome.

As for the ride? Not so awesome. Between the jerky steering wheel and the not-so-great experience, it seems that this thing is past it's due date for an overhaul. I mean...the chuck of land it is occupy…

It was just over a year ago that I posted a new blog theme redesign here on "Why I Oughta..." and showed the previous 12 years or so of what the blog has looked and felt like over the various changes. If you're reading this in your email, you're likely unaware that I've made another switch recently. Go ahead...click through on the title of the post in your email and you'll see this blue theme below. This is one of the new(ish) themes that the team at Blogger released recently.

I'm certain that there have been more, but this is the 10th *documented* version over the past 13 years. I've streamlined things a bit by removing any and all ads as well as the 'you might like' feature boxes. And for the first time in I think ever, I have only one column.

Here's the full length screen grab, but because of the scrolling and the resizing of the header image, you'll see the white band across the photo in the top post.

The Bird picked up this pair of 'safety pin' pins featuring Sully from the Monsters Inc/University movies and her favorite: Pooh Bear. (Well...Ariel might be her favorite, but she's a princess, so that's different in her mind!).

In what seems like the past few months, the pace of adoption of Legos has increased rapidly in our house. We went from having a tub of Duplos that the girls would occasionally build something with to full-on regular Lego sets in an instant. You can see some of the Lego-related posts here on the blog.

The Bird - who is younger - has mostly been spending her time with Lego Juniors. They're a bit easier to build but she still gets to work with 'regular Legos' like her big sister and leave the Duplos to her brother the Beef.

The Babe on the other hand has a total unquenchable thirst for all things Lego. It started with a few Lego Elves sets. Then she got a few Disney princess sets (including some for Christmas) and the Millennium Falcon (Squee!) and it just exploded. (note: she hasn't built the Falcon yet because she wants to 'wait until her new room is ready so her sister and brother don't wreck it'...) She's built Ecto 1 and 2 from Ghostbuster&…

One of the things we seem to do on most trips to Epcot is a stop in France for some sweet treats. One of the things that always manages to end up in our bag is the little six pack of macaroons. And that's likely the reason why one of the girls was drawn to this pin and traded for it. Just like the Figment one from late last week, this one is a 'chaser' too.

The Babe traded for this Ant-man pin from a pin board at the resort. She's naturally drawn to 'big' pins and this this certainly *is* big. It is heavy, but has only one pin back on it. Surprisingly, after she plucked it off the board, I looked at it and figured out that it really wasn't a scrapper. Someone, who had this thing on their lanyard found something that they liked better and gave this one up.

My daughters have no idea who Antman is nor have they ever seen the movie, but they both liked the pin.

Based on this eBay listing, it was part of a limited release of just 2000 pins from 2015 (a doy! It says that right on the pin!) timed with the opening day of the film. This guy has it listed for $19.88 - which is nuts, but it says he's sold 3 of them, so this seems to be a sought-after pin.

The Bird traded for this Stormtrooper Disney "Easter Egg" pin. Turns out it is part of a six pin set that includes the usual crew that you'd expect in a Star Wars starter set.The retail price is $34.95 for the six pin set. Available early March 2016. Below is a closer look at the six different character pins featured.1. Darth Vader2. Stormtrooper3. Boba Fett4. R2-D25. C-3PO6. Chewbacca
And here's a photo (from the Disney Pins Blog) showing all six of them below. That Chewy one is pretty awesome, isn't it?

The Babe traded for this one on a trip down to WDW recently. And it is a chaser. What's a 'chaser'? Welp, it is one of these non-colored, metallic versions of pins at Walt Disney World. From Living A Disney Life:
These metallic doppelgangers of some of our favorite, colorful pins first appeared in 2011. They are “Hidden Mickey” pins (small Mickey head appears on these). All Hidden Mickey pin collections (painted and chaser) are released on Cast Member lanyards. Chaser pins, interestingly, are not released as part of the set they seem to belong to – they’re released (after the original, colorful ones) as part of a larger set of chaser pins belonging to a particular year.
And this one features Figment - who has his own cult following. We've been on the Figment ride a few times and while I love Eric Idle and the song is pretty catchy, the ride is pretty meh. I know that's not an original thought, right? But, as for Figment? I kinda like him. He's OG t…

But recently, we had a totally different experience. We we went to see the new Disney movie Beauty and the Beast at the York and we stayed all the way through the credits. Why? Because, we wanted to see what you see above: the listing for the executive producer.

The Babe, who is the only one of the three that can read, was waiting in her seat with us and she just about jumped out of her seat when his name showed up. It was a fun little way to end the movie for us. The film itself was great, but because we've know that someone we know has been involved in the project for years, it made it even more fun. So, I'm considering this our 2nd Hollywood *kinda* connection. Kinda...because they're related to people we're related to. So that means 'kinda'…

This photo is hanging in the lounge at the Boardwalk Inn down on Crescent Lake. I think this is from the club-level floor either in the club or right outside of it. Kinda love the sea shells behind the couples in each of the matching convertibles. I took this photo months ago, but for some reason it just popped up in my Google photos. Thus, why it is getting posted now.

If you haven't been in the Elmhurst City Centre in the past few weeks, you have likely not seen the progress being made at the old Plass Appliance site on the west side of York Street right in the heart of the City Center. These concrete block structures are the elevators, right? They're set way back from York and rise vertically in the middle of the site.

I used 'signature move' in quotes above because that's what this NBA.com segment featuring Isaiah Thomas calls it. The pre-roll video ad is brutal, so I grabbed the video file and put it up on my own YouTube Channel as an unlisted/non-monetized video. Embedded below. Not sure how long it will last and if the NBA will yank it down. If the player below isn't working, click here to watch it elsewhere on YouTube. But... it is worth it to see these guys all light up when they're talking about Steve Colter. Then Zeke gets up and shows the move off himself. LOL when he says "...and then he gone!" Kinda sweet. They all have a …

At Pete's Fresh Market in Villa Park, I spotted these Choco-X Toys in the checkout aisle. These are basically knock off Kinder Eggs, I think. But they have official Marvel branding, so they must be legitimate in some fashion? These are written in Spanish, so maybe these are the Mexican Kinder alternative?

Wonder why we can't get Kinder Eggs, but we can get these? Kinder has these same kind of 'scoop the chocolate out' of eggs with the 'surprise' on the other side now, so the whole child eating the Kinder Egg and choking on the little toy thing seems to be a non-issue?

Either way, get to Pete's on Roosevelt for all your Easter Basket needs.

But, there's big changes on the horizon for the downtown area. If you live in any of the areas that are bordering the City Centre areas, you've probably noticed the sign you see above posted on various corners around town.

The City of Elmhurst should be commended for transparency and their efforts to engage the public on this. In addition to these signs, they've also utilized a digital sign right on York. I mean...they're really trying! So, good work, City of Elmhurst.

Chicago's 'front yard' is a winter wonderland this morning as a bit of snow dropped on the parks. The last time I posted a snow picture of my view from Edelman was last year in February.

We've been fortunate with very little snow this winter and normally I'm all for bad, snowy winters. But this year, since we've been building the house during the bulk of the winter, we've been hoping and (so far.... *knock on wood*) have had a super mild winter.

I spotted this big, brass Elephant up in Wisconsin at the Flea market in Richmond back in February. This wasn't at the Lake Geneva Antique Mall, which I've posted about previously, but it was at this weird Flea about 2 blocks off of the main drag in Richmond. We had the kids in the van and I think we were running somewhere, so I didn't have a lot of time in here as I just ran in there myself to check it out and see if it was worth coming back. Turns out, there are dozens of booths filled with lots of junk (think: tube socks), but some gems if you could look past all the other stuff. One of them was this big elephant. If you look closely, you can see the price tag on him: $35. So, I passed, but snapped this photo to show Nat when I got back in the car.

We stumbled upon this Mattel Toy Store up in Wilmot Wisconsin after we had a little lunch and checked out Wilmot Ski resort on a weekend trip recently. It was closed, so we couldn't go in, but we put our noses up to the glass to check things out. There's a big building attached to this place that has a big "American Girl" sign on it, so I'm thinking we'll have to check this place out. Their Headquarters is in Middleton up by Madison, so this facility isn't the 'big show', but the girls still love those dollies and the sign on the building made them light up just seeing it.

This cute little bunny mold arrived in the mail recently. She's wearing a dress and carrying a basket - as Easter Bunnies are wont to do. The bunny from 2014 also carried a basket, but he was a bit more formal.

This one is a bit smaller than we've done in the past, but I think with the girls helping me, the size is going to work to our advantage.

Turns out, we didn't make one of the last year. Instead, we went to Sea Island instead of having Easter around town. Ahhh...Sea Island.

Back to reality with these molds. I'll work with the girls to stuff the cavitiy with water putty, then once dry, we'll paint them up, then add a topcoat for shine. Aiming for four of them to spread the Easter joy around a bit.

This week, the attention on the house construction turns inside as the tradesmen undertake their rough installations. And that includes some low-voltage wiring work. You'd think that in today's world, there wouldn't be the need for a ton of wires running all around the place with ethernet jacks and ports and what-have-you's installed in the walls in every room. But you'd - like me - would be wrong.

As part of our house build, we're getting a bunch of different wires put in - for use now, but also a bit of 'future proofing' things of sorts. That means, Cat 5/6 (I don&…

If you live in Elmhurst and opened your utility bill recently, you probably saw this notice in the envelope that calls out the tax increases you're about to be hit with. They call it a 'Utility Bill Rate Increase', but let's all call it what it is: Government reaching into your pocket and taking more of your money for no new services.

This increase is a 12.6% increase for this year, but if you read closely, they say that there are EVEN MORE tax increases coming in the next few years. They say, they *might* not be all the way up to 12.6%, but you can bet they'll be near 10% next year and the year after and the year after.

Don't even get me started with the sewer costs. How does the City figure your sewer bill? Welp, they just take the consumption amount of water and charge you that rate for sewer fees. Even if it all doesn't go down the drain. Water your grass or garden? That water isn't going in the sewer is it? Nope. Doesn't matter. Th…

Ahh...the Disney College Program. Something that totally was NOT on my radar at any point during my college years. Heck...I didn't even study abroad. That was done by a few dudes that I knew, but it was definitely the exception, not the rule. These pins are 'from' the College Program, I think? I say 'from' because I frankly don't know how they got circulated. If you were in the College Program at Disney and were given these pins, I wouldn't think you'd trade them up for some ratty scrapper on a cast member's lanyard, would you?

Back in early January, I posted about the three windows we bought salvage that included a big transom and a pair of more square-ish windows. The transom is destined for our entryway/vestibule and the pair will go in the library/living room.
We wanted to do the windows right, so we found the folks at Drehobl Art Glass in Chicago and after talking with them, decided to undertake the restoration process on all three.
That meant taking the glass out of the sashes and work on the leading in between each one. That also gave us an opportunity to work with our painter to have him restore the sash/frame. Here's what one of them looked like in the back of Nat's van. You can see that they're in pretty rough shape. Peeling paint, weather damage. They'll get stripped, sanded and then glued to make them just about new.

And here's a look at the pair of leaded glass windows out of their sashes. They will undergo a bit more work to get straightened out. Once our painte…

This whole thing is pretty interesting of a listen (I think it must be from his audio book, right?), but if you tune in right here, at the 1:19 mark, the way Bob Dylan says "The Basement" is so interesting to me.

This American Flag Mickey Mouse pin came in a big bag and while it wasn't deemed a 'keeper' by the girls, it was by me. So it isn't going in the pile of 'traders' but instead will end up on the pin board. We've seen plenty of different versions of pins with American flags and/or some other version of patriotism on them, but I haven't come across this one with this shaped Mickey face on it.

A few weeks back, I posted an update about our new place showing the installation of the windows in most* spots (The asterisk is because not all the windows are in...as we're still waiting on a few of the more 'fancy' ones...) and how that felt like real progress. And there's been even more progress lately including the installation (do you call it that?) of the fireplace and chimney. This one you see above is in what I think is going to be my favorite spot in the house: our screened porch.

You'll note the the cables come out of the center of the masonry work above the fireplace, so one of the first jobs is going to be finding a tv that will work out there and getting it hung. The room isn't huge, but I'm thinking Nat will do a great job finding the right seating mix where we can hang as a family out there and also where we can entertain folks. And, frankly, something that I can take a Saturday afternoon nap on while watching some sports...

Lizzie has some problems that Maisy never did including resource guarding and hating...I mean TOTALLY HATING going outside if it is rainy or snowy or even cold. I almost have to push her outside some mornings. But, she's getting the hang of things. And while she's been a total pain the rear at times, she is a lover of a dog who curls up in our laps each night as we watch tv.

She's been spayed, so that might have slowed her down a step - but that's it. Just a step. She still darts around and if it weren't for 'burst mode' on my phone, I would have never been able to snap this photo you see above.

I'm Jake Parrillo. This is my website.

I'm Jake Parrillo and I'm using this space here on the web as a journal of sorts. I'm a 41 year old father of three (2 girls, 1 boy, all beautiful savages).

We live out in Downers Grove - in the Western Suburbs of Chicago. I work at Edelman, am an Xoogler and a former Village Trustee. (Yes! I was elected to office 3X.) I'm pizza-crazy,a Disney Dad, a gardener, and even into Lionel O-Gauge trains. I (sometimes) post links and videos over at at www.parrillo.info.